THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF ROBERT GREENE
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
THOMAS H. DICKINSON
THE MERMAID SERIES
LONDON AND NEW YORK
[1909]
From John Dickenson's "Greene in Conceipt" (1598).
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
"Why should art answer for theinfirmities of manners?" asksThomas Nash in defending thememory of his dead comrade,Robert Greene, against theattacks of Gabriel Harvey.Some such consideration asthis has been needed to rescueGreene's fame from the uncritical hostility of later times.It has been the misfortune of the man to be rememberedby posterity chiefly through adverse personal documents.The assaults of a frustrate and dying man on a successfulrival like curses soon turned home to roost. GabrielHarvey, the Kenrick of his day, crowned the dead poetwith bays more pathetic than the sordid wreath placedby Isam's hand. And to complete the tale of disfavourGreene himself tells his own story with a morbid self-consciousnessonly exceeding Bunyan's, and a thriftypurpose to turn even his sins to pence. Though duringGreene's life and after his death circumstances were unmeetto dispassionate biography, it may promote thecalmer mood of a later age to inquire into the conditionsof his disordered career and the sources of hi